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Interview with Nicholas Matrangaby Romuald Demidenko

Nicholas Matranga had lived in several places before arriving in Vilnius, where he has settled down about 2,5 years ago. We are meeting at a coffee place on Pylimo talking about various aspects of his work not only in the context of using social media, but also keeping up with the day’s developments thanks to the BBC World Service or The Christian Science Monitor.

When you've suggested me this venue to meet up I started browsing their photos on their Facebook page and it reminded me of this modest design of coffee bars, almost undersigned, non-place kind of arrangements which you can find pretty much everywhere nowadays.

It’s strange, this interior is Instagramy and has the attitude you’ve mentioned. Vilnius is specific about these type of places and the design that they employ. They create a mood. They have a sort of vintage arrangement with Nuova Simonelli Aurelia II espresso machines and dark coloured interiors, extremely expensive light bulbs. And it all appears from the magazines. On their Facebook the photos suggest a quality of niceness, but it not really here. I like the place. I assume the photos they use on their FB page are not professional, their aesthetic is “artsy” with awkward compositions.There’s also this place around the corner and it looks the same, maybe slightly lighter interior, the table might be made of a lighter wood. It’s something you you can also find in other cities like Brussels. There’s one developer in Brussels who makes this type of restaurant interior and then sells them. You’ll find semi-identical venues, but diversified – a coffee shop, a pizza bar, etc. I don’t have Instagram, but I suspect some similarities.

'For some reason people like chatting on Facebook and I don’t know where it comes from. I have much bigger fun chatting on Gmail to be honest'

So when we’re talking about drinks and food, you've showed me some of your work called ‘Food stickers’. Is it something local in this collection of stickers?

The latest series of stickers is of cuisines that you can find in Vilnius. The dishes included are coming from regions of the USSR, but also some of the national cuisine, or specific dishes, have a long history and have migrated over generations. But, this series is an interpretation of the food stickers. It’s an ongoing project. The original stickers were focused more on colonization by the Netherlands in Indonesia and Surinam. There rooted in post-colonial cultures and meditations on authenticity. Some of the photos are of a higher quality than others since they are taken from several online sources. It is also, to put it as stupidly as possible, about the beautification of food. Think fast food advertisements, or think haute cuisine.

​So I made a couple editions of the stickers that would refer to some Soviet-style of cuisine. At a Georgian market in San Francisco, CA the common language between a Lithuanian client and Georgian merchant is Russian. This is all a tiny element. It’s not an effort for characterization in order to make identification possible. There is an image that is presented, but also several other images or thoughts. The images are photoshopped to isolate the dish. To make it stand apart from itself. That way they have more control over their new context. They are a bit uncanny. On mustard yellow and violet striped wall paper they become alien. If you put this image of a pot into Google Image search google will give you more options. It is banal, but we spend our days with these options.

I don't think I work enough. I get a lot of shit from people that I don't make enough paintings recently. But I don't feel tired. My brain’s feeling fine, but maybe my body needs to catch up.

You've said that you spend a lot of time online. How many hours exactly? ​About six hours and I think it's too much. People spend a lot of time in front of their screens, but I think they spend as much time as they need. Probably the curators spend more than others. Most of the artist whom I know don't seem to spend so much time with their computers. I guess they are mostly at their studios, or in nature. I know several of them who don't use Facebook they borrow Facebook, which would be an easier form to spend time online.

Not too much information. Maybe too many social media platforms and too many people who abuse them. In case of Facebook there are two ways of using it. Generally, I have a very small group of people that seem to like to be active both online and in life. I don't have so many Facebook friends, 650. But then out of these 650 I would say that about at most 30 of them are those whom I keep tabs on. Those thirty are handling Facebook well. Amongst these 650 the half of them are not very present, meaning they make almost no status updates. Facebook is maybe good for parents, because when you share your photos they can catch up on what you're currently up to. I have a strictly set privacy on Facebook so you can’t tag me, its a good feature. It’s more about the privacy to shape your image. I am not talking about state surveillance.

I normally scavenger. I usually check up on the newsfeed couple times a day to gather some interesting posts or photos. Sometimes I am unfollowing people not to see what they are posting. And for some reason people like chatting on Facebook and I don’t know where it comes from. I have much bigger fun chatting on Gmail to be honest.

I would listen to the BBC Radio, which is great. Although they have a very repetitive news segment, but the programming is really good. And I was mostly just reading books or lots of articles that I’d print out. In order to check emails, I was borrowing computers from friends. I wouldn’t have been able to survive that way about 3 years ago.

Nicholas Matranga was a researcher at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, from 2009—2010. His work has been included in exhibition at several venues, including CAC Vilnius, National Centre for Contemporary Art in Moscow, Noorus Festival in Tartu.

The conversation with Nicholas Matranga is part of the project Vilnius at Work​, newartcenter.info's residency at Rupert, Vilnius.